President Rivlin laments loss of life at Israeli-Palestinian industrial park, saying it was also attack on the ‘possibility of coexistence’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the “despicable murderer” who carried out a terror attack at a West Bank industrial park earlier in the day, killing two Israelis and injuring another, will be brought to justice.

“This is a very serious terror attack in which two Israelis were brutally murdered,” he said at the opening of the cabinet meeting. “Security forces are in pursuit of the despicable murderer, and I am sure that they will catch him and bring him to justice.”

Israeli security forces at the scene of a shooting attack in Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank on October 7, 2018 (Flash90)

Netanyahu also conveyed his condolences to the families of those killed and sent his best wishes to the injured woman.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also commented on the extensive manhunt for the assailant, saying, “It’s only a matter of time before we lay our hands on him.”

The businesses in the Barkan Industrial Park, where the attack took place, employ some 8,000 people, approximately half of them Israeli and the other half Palestinian.

Shortly before 8 a.m., the suspect, a 23-year-old Palestinian man from the northern West Bank, entered a factory where he was employed in the park, near the Ariel settlement-city, armed with a locally produced Carlo-style submachine gun, according to army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.

Inside, he tied up and shot dead a man and a woman and shot a third female victim, 54, in the stomach. The second woman was moderately wounded and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The woman who was killed in the attack was identified as Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, from Rosh Ha’ayin, and the man was named as Ziv Hajbi, 35, from Rishon Lezion.

Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 29 (left), and Ziv Hajbi, 35, who were killed in a terror shooting in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, October 7, 2018 (screenshots: Facebook)

After the attack, the suspect fled the scene, still armed with the gun.

President Reuven Rivlin lamented the loss of life as well as the wider cost of an attack at a place where Israelis and Palestinians work side by side.

“I am shocked and saddened by this morning’s terrible terrorist attack at the Barkan industrial area. Our hearts are with the families of those who were killed, and our prayers are with those who are injured.

“This was not only an attack on innocent people going about their daily lives, it was also an attack on the possibility of Israelis and Palestinians coexisting peacefully,” he said.

Rivlin also called on the Palestinian leadership to condemn the attack and to help capture the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had.

President Reuven Rivlin speaks at a conference in Lod on March 4, 2018. (Avi Dishi/Flash90)

“We will not rest until every one of them is brought to justice,” said the president.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett declared that there must be “zero tolerance” for any form of terrorism.

“Israel’s policy against terror must be zero tolerance on all fronts. Zero tolerance in the face of daily infiltrations from the Gaza border, zero tolerance in the face of the incendiary kites flown into Israel on a daily basis, zero tolerance for any manifestation of terror. We must restore Israeli deterrence,” he said.